Maximise your Avios, air miles and hotel points

Up to 50,000 – yes 50,000 – free Membership Rewards points for Amex Platinum holders

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If you have an American Express Platinum card, this is a fantastic deal.

If you don’t have an American Express Platinum card, this deal may well persuade you to get one – especially as it runs until the end of February.

Take a look at this.

American Express is offering 10,000 Membership Rewards points for every supplementary card you add to your Platinum charge card account.

This is a phenomenal deal.  10,000 Membership Rewards points gets you 10,000 Avios amongst many other things.  More importantly, supplementary cards are FREE.

You can take a look at the Membership Rewards catalogue hereThe airline redemption partners are here.

If you don’t currently have any supplementary cardholders on your Platinum charge card, you could earn 50,000 bonus Membership Rewards points by adding the maximum five people.

As an Amex Platinum charge card holder, you are allowed to issue FIVE supplementary cards.  The first one will come as a Platinum card and will receive ALL of the Platinum card benefits.  They will receive their own Priority Pass for airport lounge access and can claim their own Starwood Gold, Club Carlson Gold and Le Club Accorhotels Platinum status cards.  They also receive Eurostar lounge access.

The other four supplementary cards will be Gold or Green.  These cards will benefit from the Platinum travel insurance coverage but do not qualify for any hotel status cards or a Priority Pass.  You also do not receive the Lounge Club airport lounge access card that comes with a standalone Amex Gold.

Here are a few other points to remember:

All of the charges on the supplementary cards appear on YOUR statement as the main cardholder.

You, as the main cardholder, are legally liable for ensuring they are paid.

Supplementary cardholders must be over 18.

A supplementary cardholder is not treated as being an American Express cardholder in their own right.  This means that, if they later choose to apply for their own Gold or Platinum card in their own name, they will be treated as a new customer and will receive a sign-up bonus.

Whilst you are liable for any spending by supplementary cardholders, American Express will still do ID checks on your applications.  If the applicant does not have a UK bank account and/or does not appear on the electoral roll, on the council tax register and/or does not have other credit cards in their own name, they are likely to be refused.  I tried and failed to get a supplementary Amex card for our nanny a couple of years ago.

As you can see from the application page, this offer runs until February 28th 2015.

If you do not already have a Platinum charge card but had been thinking about it, this may swing it for you.  As well as the 30,000 Membership Rewards points you receive for signing up, you could also receive a further 50,000 points for issuing five supplementary cards.  My full review of Amex Platinum can be found hereThe application page for new cardholders is here.

Note that you MUST use this link to apply for your supplementary cards in order to receive the 10,000 bonus points.  Any other link, including adding supplementary cards during the application process for a primary card, will not work.


Want to earn more points from credit cards? – April 2024 update

If you are looking to apply for a new credit card, here are our top recommendations based on the current sign-up bonuses.

In February 2022, Barclaycard launched two exciting new Barclaycard Avios Mastercard cards with a bonus of up to 25,000 Avios. You can apply here.

You qualify for the bonus on these cards even if you have a British Airways American Express card:

Barclaycard Avios Plus card

Barclaycard Avios Plus Mastercard

Get 25,000 Avios for signing up and an upgrade voucher at £10,000 Read our full review

Barclaycard Avios card

Barclaycard Avios Mastercard

5,000 Avios for signing up and an upgrade voucher at £20,000 Read our full review

You can see our full directory of all UK cards which earn airline or hotel points here. Here are the best of the other deals currently available.

British Airways American Express Premium Plus

25,000 Avios and the famous annual 2-4-1 voucher Read our full review

American Express Preferred Rewards Gold

Your best beginner’s card – 20,000 points, FREE for a year & four airport lounge passes Read our full review

The Platinum Card from American Express

40,000 bonus points and a huge range of valuable benefits – for a fee Read our full review

Virgin Atlantic Reward+ Mastercard

18,000 bonus points and 1.5 points for every £1 you spend Read our full review

Earning miles and points from small business cards

If you are a sole trader or run a small company, you may also want to check out these offers:

British Airways Accelerating Business American Express

30,000 Avios sign-up bonus – plus annual bonuses of up to 30,000 Avios Read our full review

American Express Business Platinum

40,000 points sign-up bonus and an annual £200 Amex Travel credit Read our full review

American Express Business Gold

20,000 points sign-up bonus and FREE for a year Read our full review

Capital on Tap Business Rewards Visa

Huge 30,000 points bonus until 12th May 2024 Read our full review

For a non-American Express option, we also recommend the Barclaycard Select Cashback card for sole traders and small businesses. It is FREE and you receive 1% cashback on your spending.

Barclaycard Select Cashback Business Credit Card

1% cashback uncapped* on all your business spending (T&C apply) Read our full review

Comments (205)

This article is closed to new comments. Feel free to ask your question in the HfP forums.

  • James67uk says:

    “You, as the main cardholder, are legally liable for ensuring they are paid.”

    Please feel free to nominate me as one of your supplrmentary cardholders, but preferably the first… 😀

  • Simmonds87 says:

    Currently £700 away from spending £15,000 on my gold card for the renewal bonus.

    Guess there would be no way to combine the £15K spend then upgrade offer to platinum and then supplementary cards?

    • TimS says:

      The gold spend bonus only comes a month or so after your renewal date, regardless of how soon you actually reach the £15k spend.

      Therefore unless you are very close to your renewal date already it wouldn’t work in time.

      • Anon says:

        Refer your other half to plat. Other half adds you as sup = ref bonus and sup bonus.

        • Simmo says:

          Renewal date is 3rd Feb – Looks like I’ll have to try figure my best options!

          • TimS says:

            The 7500 points for gold spend probably won’t post for a month 9r so either.

          • Simmo says:

            RESULT! All sorted… Rung AMEX, they said if i spend the extra to £15K and then email them, they will manually add the 7,500 bonus points, and then allow me to go get the Platinum for the 15,000 upgrade offer.

  • Pol says:

    I can’t see where you specify whether you want green or gold cards. Don’t want to end up paying for 4 supplementary platinum cards!

    • Head for Points says:

      They automatically come as Gold after the first one – or at least they did when I last got one, which admittedly was a while ago

  • PJK says:

    Hmmm, sounds great, wonder whether I’ve time to apply for Amex Gold then upgrade to Platinum then apply for 5 supplementary card holders by end Feb… That would make a nice little stash to start my MR collection off!

  • Boi says:

    Just applied for gold last week! And hubby as supp card holder…I only have him as potential candidate. How do I convert? Is it still worth it?
    Their insurance doesn’t cover me as I have high blood pressure.

  • Andrew says:

    Couple of questions:

    Do the supplementary card holders need to live at the same address as you? (Can’t see it specified anywhere)

    And secondly…. Can you add a plat, gold and green supplementary cards in one other persons name – ie get 30k points for getting your spouse 3 cards ?

    • Felix says:

      No and no.

      I’ve got supplementary cards in friends names so definitely not same address.

    • Head for Points says:

      No, definitely not. My Mum has a Gold supplementary on my Platinum.

    • mike says:

      Does anyone know the answer to Andrews 2nd question?

  • Nick says:

    Damn, applied for 2 supplementary cards recently and only got a measly 1000 points each

    • Felix says:

      Do you think it is first time supplementary holders only? I.e. If you cancelled those two then reapplied with this link would it work?

  • @mkcol says:

    Damn! Cancelled my platinum charge card on Saturday!

    I’ll just have to get my husband to add me on his own account.

This article is closed to new comments. Feel free to ask your question in the HfP forums.

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